Views of a local who has been in the hospitality side of the wine biz full- or part-time for over 20 years. Maybe more importantly, an avid consumer of the local wines for over 30 years. Mostly general comments on the California wine business because that's what I know.
Sometimes there's nothing like a good Sonoma Whine! If you don't take my comments too seriously then neither will I. After all, it's only wine.

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Monday, November 9, 2015

Top Wine-Producing Countries

Where does all that wine come from? You can figure out that Western Europe and the Americas will have countries in the top ten, but you might not have guessed China.

Top Ten

1. France produces something like seven billion bottles of wine every year. That's one bottle for every person on the planet.

2. Italy is a very close second. For the 2015 harvest it looks like Italy surpassed France in grapes harvested, but I don't know if this is a trend or an occasional occurrence based on the year's weather.

3. Spain is a somewhat distant third making about three-fourths as much wine as France.

4. The U.S. is a distant fourth making less than half as much as France or Italy. The good news is we consume more than any other country. BTW 89% of America's wine comes from California so the state by itself would still be ranked 4th.

5. Argentina where three-quarters of all the world's Malbec is grown. The wine business here is in a bit of a funk as is the rest of their economy.

6 - 10. Australia, Chile, China, South Africa all produce about the same amount of wine. They are followed by Germany rounding out the top ten. China is growing fast, or has been until their economy hiccupped.

These top ten make 80% of the world's wine.

American wine production

In 1880 the U.S. Department of Agricultural looked at wine grape production. The top five states were California, Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, and New Mexico. Today it's California, Washington, New York, Oregon, and Texas. Interestingly, results vary on who is number five depending on who you ask. It could be Texas, Pennsylvania, or Virginia. Different wine associations and even different gov't organizations report different numbers. Also, the production of a region can vary year-to-year.